M1 Motorway

[Vern LCFC]

In a recent quiz this question was asked "Between which two cities did the M1 run when first opened"? The answer being London & Birmingham.I always thought that when opened in the late 50`s it only went to Northamptonshire.Any information please!!      By the way which was first service station on M1?  Thanks.

[GuavaJellie]

The first section of the M1 started just south of St. Albans and connected to the M45 at Daventry - a distance of about 90 miles. It was built by John Laing in the days when they were major construction contractors, and their Project Manager for the on-site works was Mr John Pycroft. For a long period during construction the weather was atrocious, but nevertheless Mr Pycroft delivered on time. The first motorway service area to be built in the UK was Watford Gap.

[sddsddean]

What is now the M45 was originally going to be the motorway route into the Midlands (Coventry, B'ham etc), but they decided the route that is now the M6 would be better. So the M45 is only 8 miles long and stops at Dunchurch (although they put a new junction on it about 5 years ago, so that it acted as the Dunchurch bypass). You can regularly look over the edge of one of its bridges and see no vehicles on it!